Tell me how you do it

At the end of August, I’ll be going back to work full time for the first time since Ella was born, six years ago. It was too good of an offer to refuse – I’ll be teaching at the day school where Ella attends, and Zoe will attend in a year, which means that I will not  only be able to take them to and from school every day, but will also get to see them every day for many years. I’m sure it’s the right choice, but I’m also mystified about how everything will get done around the house.

I know many of my readers are in homes with two working parents. Now I’m asking (begging, really) you to share your secrets. How do you and your spouse divide up your household/parenting chores? How do you get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour? How do you get ready for shabbat? Do you ever get any sleep?

Any and all tips will be greatly appreciated!

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Getting it right – the bar/bat mitzvah party

 

you never see these

I tutor seven or eight kids a year for their bar mitzvah ceremonies, and consequently I attend a lot of parties. In fact, it’s become my husband’s and my main source of dates, since both hiring a sitter and paying to go out is rare splurge for us. Attending these events, I’m often reminded of how grateful I am to be raising my daughters in a small, haimish, community. There are almost never themes or t-shirts (do they still do these in other cities, or am I showing signs of age?) and never, ever, the “sexy bar-mitzvah dancers” I’ve heard about from my friends in the city. The most popular venue in our town for the parties is the Elks club, the typical entertainment is our local klezmer band, and nothing about the food and drink is opulent. (Sometimes I wish it were a little more kosher, but that’s another post….) Last night we attended a celebration in the bat-mitzvah’s back yard under a tent. In the middle of havdalah the sky opened up and starting pouring rain in biblical proportions. The guests, young and old, shot into gear, moving tables, running food into the house, helping musicians shlep their gear, and generally laughing about our muddy feet and soggy hair, while we sang and danced into the night.

It’s quite a contrast to this piece, which I read last week on Facebook, courtesy of my friend Jess. Seriously, how has it come to this?

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But is it good for the Jews?

 

don't we look cool?

Here are the girls and I heading off to buy some challah on our brand new Xtracycle. I recently accepted a full time job for next year, and decided to splurge on something that I’d wanted for a long time. We’ve had our SUB* for 3 days and we’ve already gone to the grocery store, the hair salon, 3 friends’ houses, school, and to drop of a rug at the cleaners’ all with pure pedal power. It’s much easier to use than the Burley – no attaching and unattaching the trailer, over and over again – and a zillion time more versatile than a tag-a-long. Consequently, I’m motivated to bike more than ever before. Which is good for my health, my wallet, and the earth. And, I guess, the Jews.

Shabbat Shalom!

 

*sports-utility bike

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What’s in a name for an interfaith family?

written for the July PJ Library e-newsletter

My husband and I had many arguments  long discussions about what we would name our children. He wanted French names, all of which evoked the Apostles, and I wanted Hebrew names, which seemed too “foreign” to him. We compromised, as parents must, by selecting names from neither tradition for their first, most-used, name. We gave our older daughter a Hebrew middle name and our younger daughter a French middle name, and selected additional Hebrew names for both girls for ritual use. As an interfaith couple, we knew that our families would attach a lot of significance to our name choices, and I think we ended up making a very honest statement with our decision – our children are religiously Jewish, but ethnically, they are products of a rich blend of traditions.

I don’t think we fully satisfied anyone with our choice. My mother regrets (aloud) that we didn’t name  the girls after some of her  deceased relatives, a widespread Jewish tradition. I’m sure that my in-laws wish they could have attended a baptism in which their granddaughters received their “Christian” names. Fortunately, we soon realized that there were many more naming opportunities ahead that required no debate whatsoever – we  got to name ourselves!

Keith became Papa, in keeping with his French roots. I wanted Eema, the Hebrew name for mother. (Unfortunately this name didn’t quite take; instead, Ella insisted on mimicking her “mama”-bleating Fisher Price dollhouse.) Choosing a name was even more thrilling for our parents, as their long awaited first granddaughter entered the world. My mother chose “Bubbe,” the name she called her beloved grandmother in Boro Park, Brooklyn as a little girl. My father-in-law was dubbed “Pip,” an affectionate nickname for Pépé, also French. His wife is an all-American “Grandma.” By using these names, our children on each of our parents’ traditions, without requiring us to compromise the decisions we have made about our family’s religion.

Zoe and Bubbe

When my husband and I decided to marry, and Keith chose not to convert, I felt that the only way we could raise our children as proud, confident Jews was to be completely forthright and unapologetic about our mixed-marriage. No, Papa doesn’t know Hebrew. Yes, I keep kosher. Yes, Grandma and Pip have a Christmas tree and no, Bubbe doesn’t go to work on Jewish holidays. Our mutli-lingual array of family names is one more way to keep this conversation going. When I read A Grandma Like Yours/A Grandpa Like Yours, which introduces children to a tallit-wearing sheep called Zayde, a shofar blowing llama, known as saba, and a matzah-baking porcupine Papa, my younger daughter, Zoe, immediately wanted know, “Why is there no Pip in the book?” When I pointed out to her that all of the grandparents in the book were Jewish, she immediately understood. “Well, what did you call your grandfather?” they asked. I took the opportunity to tell my children about Pop-pop, who arrived at Ellis Island as a boy, and we speculated together about what name my father might have chosen had he lived to become a grandfather.

Someday, I’d love to see a sequel to A Grandma Like Yours that reflects diverse families like ours. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your story. What do your children call you and your parents, and why?

 

The PJ Library™ program sends Jewish-content books and music on a monthly basis to families with children through age seven. Created by The Harold Grinspoon Foundation, The PJ Library is funded nationally in partnership with The Harold Grinspoon Foundation and local philanthropists/organizations.  To learn more, go to www.pjlibrary.org

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Redefining Shabbat, again and again

I grew up in a home that was not shabbat observant. While we sometimes went to synagogue, we also went shopping, to the movies, and to Memorial Stadium. As a participant in NCSY, I had an idea of what it meant to be shomer shabbat, but I also had the notion that this kind of extremism was only for the “frummies.”

As a young adult, studying for a Master’s in Jewish Education at HUC, I began to question what it meant to work in Jewish education without actually observing one of the central mitzvot of Judaism. I ultimately dropped out of the program, went to a wonderful women’s yeshiva in NYC, and became significantly more observant for a number of years. I never identified as Orthodox or as a Ba’alat Teshuvah, but I did take halachah, and shabbat in particular, very seriously.

This worked for me on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, more or less. Observing shabbat didn’t feel like a sacrifice – I had meals to prepare, meals to attend, walks in the park, and a large group of peers all making the same kinds of choices. But once I left this community of observant but thoughtful, even progressive, Jews, I found that most other observant communities were decidedly uncomfortable for me for a myriad of reasons that I won’t delve into right now. And I realized that for better or worse, my commitment to halachah wasn’t based on faith, or a sense of being commanded to observe mitzvot, but based on wanting to belong to a community of like-minded Jews. Once I lost that community, I couldn’t really sustain much of my shabbat observance . Then I fell in love and married and non-Jew, and it became just that much more difficult.

Now that I have a daughter in day school, and still work as a Jewish educator, I’m realizing I need to re-think, once again, my approach to shabbat. What does it mean to light candles, have shabbat dinner, go to shul now and then, but otherwise treat shabbat like any other day? On the other hand, what does it mean to try to insist on a strict observance of shabbat when there are almost no shomer shabbat families in our town, and when my husband isn’t interested in going along for the ride (or should I say, the walk….)

So, I’m taking slow steps. This week, I quietly decided to turn off the computer for all of shabbat. As someone who spends way too much time on my laptop, this felt big, and I kept the decision private until Saturday night, when Ella heard me telling a friend at a havdallah potluck about my experiment.

Tonight, in the bath, Ella announced, entirely of her own accord,  “I think I’d like to stop watching tv on shabbat.” I told her I thought it was a great idea. I’ll remind her on Friday, although I won’t insist. Whether she follows through or not, it was a great reminder to me that even small changes on shabbat, which used to seem kind of ridiculous to me (either you keep shabbat or you don’t, right?) really matter now that I’m a parent. One of my challenges is to make sure we add to the do’s and not just the dont’s – that we find more families to celebrate with, and more ways to celebrate shabbat – as we consider eliminating various kinds of work.

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Why rush into things?

 

the calm before the storm

It’s 6:30, an hour after we usually start shabbat dinner during the school year, no matter what time the sun sets. But this is the first friday of vacation. My husband stopped for a drink on his way home to celebrate his last day of school, and the kids are playing a game which has something to do with Sasha and Malia Obama and Tinkerbell. Everything is ready, but no one seems to be in a rush to start dinner, least of all, me. I’m having a glass of Calvados and sitting quietly in the kitchen table enjoying my own pre-shabbat shabbat. It may be the most relaxing moment of the next 24 hours.

 

L’chayim, mommies. And Shabbat Shalom.

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Almost fool-proof chicken

Although I was a vegetarian for over 25 years, I sure do love chicken. We keep kosher in a town where there is no kosher butcher, and sometimes the only Empire available is a whole chicken, which is great for soup, but trickier to cook in the oven, at least for me – I often end up under or overcooking it.

I have finally landed on a fool-proof way of preparing whole chicken to recommend, although I must warn you that it requires the purchase of a new tool. I have a very small kitchen, and am not one to load up on extra gadgets, especially if I’m likely to want two of them – one for dairy and one for meat. But I guarantee you that a clay pot is worth the investment, even if all you were going to do was cook chicken in it.  The chicken comes out impossibly moist and tender – falling off the bone, as they say. (Don’t they?)

Every clay pot recipe begins by soaking the pot in cold water for at least 15 minutes. For chicken, I like to lay some carrots and or/halved onions on the bottom of the pot, so the chicken doesn’t end up soaking in its own, copious, grease. Then I stuff some flavors in the cavity – tonight it was half a lemon, 6 cloves of garlic and 2 sprigs of rosemary. Rub a little olive oil on the skin, salt and pepper, and place the chicken in the pot. Cover it with the top of the clay pot, and place it in a cold oven. Turn the oven to 400 and check on the chicken (if it’s around 3.5 pounds) in about an hour. When the temperature on a meat thermometer is up to about 150, I like to remove the lid of the pot so that the chicken can brown a little, but not so long that the meat has a chance to dry out. Remove when the thermometer hits 165.

Oh, is this good.

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The End of Days

 

i went to college w/the director

Overheard:

 

Zoe, my 4 year old: “What’s the last day?”

Ella, almost 6: “Do you meant the last day of school?”

Zoe: “No, the last day.”

Ella: “Do you mean the last day of the week?”

Zoe: “No, the last day.”

Ella: “The last day of the month?”

Zoe: “I MEAN, the last day of all the days!”

Ella: “I don’t know. Let’s ask Mama.”

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The ultimate shabbat dinner

No, this is not a recipe post. This is about one of my favorite ways to spend Friday night – at a potluck.

I’ve organized a few family potlucks for my shul, and every time I do, I wish we had them more often. Here are my top 10 5 reasons why, in no particular order.

1. I love only having to prepare one dish. (I almost always bring this noodle kugel.)

2. I love trying other people’s signature potluck dishes. Last time someone brought an amazing spelt salad, and this time, well…..we had three different kinds of pizza.

3. I love having a chance to shmooze with a tableful of grownups. The conversation is exponentially more interesting than with just two couples, the maximum we can fit at our table.

4. Everyone (or almost everyone) pitches in to clean up.

5. FREE BABYSITTERS! (I insist on the shul hiring babysitters to play with the kids after dinner if I’m going to volunteer to lead the rest of the program.) This allows #3 to actually take place.

A few tips for a successful shabbat potluck:

1. Don’t count on someone to bring the grape juice and challah. The organizer should take care of the ritual needs, so you don’t worry someone not showing up.

2. If your synagogue doesn’t allow potlucks in the actual kitchen for kashrut reasons, buy a few inexpensive serving pieces to have on hand for the people who forget.

3. The only real downside to a potluck is the risk that there won’t be enough food, or too much of one thing (dessert, for example), and not enough of another. There are a few ways to help prevent this – either assign parts of the meal according to least name (A-F bring drinks, G-N bring entrees, etc.) There’s also a nifty online potluck organizer that works really well if you can rely on people to sign up ahead of time.

4. Wine makes shabbat even better (in my personal opinion.) If you can’t write BYOB on the flyer, at least drop a few hints.

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What’s great about your shul?

I recently joined the education committee at my synagogue. The board and the professional staff have all voiced a commitment to, and a glaringly obvious need for, some major revitalization of the way we “do” education. However, I’m not sure that any of us have any idea how to make it happen, nor do we have the funds to bring in any experts to help us.

I’ve been poring over the recent Avi Chai report “Supplementary Schools that Work” and skimming the web for other examples of great schools, great shuls, and great programs, since the school is only piece of what the shul should be offering us. In my opinion, there’s almost nothing at our shul that doesn’t need to be revamped, even if it takes a lot of work and a very long time.

Although I’m a committed homeshuler, I’d love to be tempted to spent more time in shul with my family – so I’m turning to you, my beloved and inspiring readers. What’s great about your shul (or someone else’s shul?) What programs really succeed, especially for kids and families? What’s made you and/or your family excited to go to shul, or inspired you to return?

I’m all ears (or should I say, all eyes.)

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